


Remember Me Love, When I'm Reborn

by Twentythreefandoms



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bottom Keith (Voltron), Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mentions of Pre-Kerberos, POV Shiro (Voltron), SHEITH - Freeform, Shiro's clone is not bad, Smut, Top Shiro (Voltron), clone shiro - Freeform, season 3 episode 5, the journey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 06:00:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16341131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twentythreefandoms/pseuds/Twentythreefandoms
Summary: Shiro has to get back, he has to. To Voltron or to this Keith he isn't sure. But there's something pushing him to go back.With his mind a puddle and another round of Galra torture under his belt, Shiro knows he is never going to be the same.Can Keith still love a ghost?





	Remember Me Love, When I'm Reborn

**Author's Note:**

> This is Part One of a two part series exploring the first night where Shiro's clone returns to Voltron, unbeknownst to everyone but Haggar and the Galra. 
> 
> I wanted to make it clear in this that Shiro's clone has no idea that he's a clone, and that the old memories he suddenly remembered were taken from Shiro's actual memory and transplanted into this clone. This clone isn't evil, only deeply sad, confused and needs love.
> 
> Fic title comes from "Shrike" by Hozier. This song describes them so perfectly, please go listen to it!

Shiro could feel the last bits of his life leave his body with every labored breath through his crapped lips. The oxygen levels were critically low, he hadn’t slept, ate or drank anything in nearly a week, and there was no sign of Voltron. Of Keith.

He couldn’t quite recall who Keith was, but for some reason that name stood out among anything else. More than Voltron. It infuriated Shiro to no end, knowing that the Galra had once again took his entire being and decimated it. His time with the Galra was dramatically shorter than the previous one, but without doubt they had done everything in their power to tear him apart in more ways than the first. He could barely remember who he was as a person, only that he had to find Voltron. It was imperative that he did, he just hoped he could remember why. 

Shiro, with deep resignation, knew that any hope of rescue would surely never come, that he would never find Voltron. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, ready to give up. There was no point in trying when all it did was get you beaten every time. He was tired. Shiro was ready. 

A deep roar broke through the ship’s barrier, causing a weak Shiro to crack his eyes open, only to be greeted by the sight of the Black Lion. A faint smile cracked his lips as a settled feeling overcame him. This must be Voltron. It felt right. Looking at the Lion in question, new memories came flooding back to him piloting the ship. Being a leader to the paladins. 

To Keith. 

Keith.

“Shiro?!” Came the deeply familiar voice of Keith, and Shiro surprised himself by letting a few tears of joy slip down his face. 

“Baby, it’s me.” Shiro breathed, another shock to him.  _ Baby _ ? Did he just call Keith that? Was Keith--?

“Oh my god,  _ Shiro _ , I’m here. I’m here.” Keith replied urgently, his voice ecstatic as the Black Lion opened its mouth to let the ship in. Immediately Shiro could feel oxygen entering the ship as he landed inside the Black Lion, causing Shiro to cough and become light headed at the new sensation. It all felt so foreign to Shiro, and yet at the same time like he had been here a million times. Or like someone had told him the same story a million times and he’s living the outcome. 

The front of the ship opened to expose Shiro to the Black Lion, and in the distance Shiro could hear running getting closer to him. 

“Shiro?!” Keith yelled as he rounded the corner to the room and stopped in his tracks when he saw what was left of Shiro sitting helplessly in his ship.

“Is it really you, Keith?” Shiro whispered, his levels still dangerously low. 

Keith approached him gingerly, climbing onto the ship with caution, “I could be asking you the same question.” He replied once he was aboard the ship and helping Shiro unbuckle his restraints. “It doesn’t feel real. I can’t believe you’ve disappeared twice on me, and returned both times for me to save you.” He smiled softly at Shiro, causing the warmest of feelings in the pit of Shiro’s stomach. 

Love, Shiro suspected. It must be love. He was in love with Keith. 

Memories flooded him as he remembered their life together. How they met, how they bonded over their love for the sky, how Adam never really trusted the one who was clearly in love with his idol, how Shiro never really cared about Adam’s hesitations until he realized that it was because he was in love with Keith. He remembered how Adam left but Keith had stayed, how it was always Keith. Even when he returned from his first failed mission, it was always them. How it would always be them.

“I guess I’m lucky.” Shiro replied eventually, barely above a whisper. 

Keith’s brows furrowed and he leaned in to take off Shiro’s helmet. His eyes blew open when he noticed the considerable length of Shiro’s hair, “Trying a new look?”

“What? Don’t you like it?” Shiro joked, but then remembered that his hair was normally much shorter. “There weren’t salons where I was.”

“I don’t think I want to know where you were.” Keith grumbled. “Come on, we have to get you back to the Castle and into a healing pod, stat.” He helped lift Shiro from his seat and nearly carried the older man from the loading dock of the Black Lion into a little seating area where Keith sat him on plush cushions. Shiro felt like he could weep at the soft plushness of his seat, not having remembered the last time he had such a luxury. 

“Guys, I am confirming I have Shiro.” Keith spoke into his com on his wrist. There was a roar of cheers and chatter in response, but Keith spoke over them. “Hey, listen! He’s in pretty bad shape and he needs the medical bay. I’m going to take him there and I don’t want him ambushed by people. I just need one person who help examine him.”

“I’ll do it, Black Paladin!” Coran chirped in response, “I’ll meet you there in twenty tics.”

Keith turned off his com and sighed deeply as Shiro could only watch him from below. “How long has it been?” He asked.

The furrow in Keith’s brow returned and Keith knelt down to sit next to Shiro, their bodies close but not enough to touch to Shiro’s dismay. “It felt like forever.” Keith replied, looking directly at Shiro, “But really it was about nine months. A little less than the first time I thought I lost you.” Keith added, almost as an afterthought. 

Shiro lifted his hand weakly and placed it on Keith’s upper thigh, “Never again. I promise you.”

Keith let out a soft chuckle and shook his head, “What did I tell you about promises?”

At first Shiro couldn’t remember, but then a faint image of the two of them wrapped in a tight embrace outside of Keith’s father’s shack came to him. It was before everything changed, before the deep scar across his face, before the changing of his hair color. Before Keith had to suddenly grow up. He had made a promise to Keith, a promise to return to him from his mission. They were both so young then, so afraid of this new thing before them. It had terrified Shiro to make the promise to the young Keith at the time, but it terrified him more to do nothing. A promise was the only thing he could give Keith. 

“I never make a promise I can’t keep.” Shiro replied, almost as if he was saying it as a confirmation to himself. 

Keith regarded Shiro as if he wasn’t real, like the words that Shiro had just uttered were lost to him, but Shiro knew better than that. It was the face Keith always made when Shiro told him something that Keith wanted more than anything but was scared to lose. It had always been that way. The first time Shiro saw it was when Shiro vowed to him outside Iverson’s office that he’d never give up on him. Keith desperately wanted to believe him but was scared of if he did. Was this just going to be another adult pretending like he cared, only to leave again?

It was obvious as time went on it was anything but that.

A loud rumbling and creaking caused the pair to shift out of their moment when they realised they were inside the Castle of Lions. Keith stood from his spot and helped Shiro stand as they made their way out of the Black Lion and through the corridors of the Castle which lead to the medical bay. A million and a half memories came flooding through Shiro, nearly overwhelming him, but he held tightly onto Keith’s hand, forcing himself to be grounded. Everything else could wait. 

The whooshing of the doors brought Keith and Shiro to a large room with a single man waiting in the middle. It took Shiro a moment, but he recognised the man as Coran. No one else had the mustache and hair combo like the Altean man. 

“Oh, thank the Ancients!” Coran cried in his shrill voice. “Shiro, you’re alive!”

“Not for much longer if we don’t get him treated.” Keith growled, causing Shiro to grin. He always loved Keith’s stark honesty. 

“Right, of course.” Coran nodded, running over to the pair and helping Keith get Shiro onto an examination table. 

Shiro didn’t think much of the table as Keith was helping him onto it, but the moment he laid back on the harsh cold metal and he lost sight of Keith, Shiro immediately panicked. It all happened at once, and it took Shiro by surprise as his feeling suddenly were lost to him. Panic instantly shot through him and he screamed despite Keith and Coran trying to calm him. “I can’t go back!” He screamed, finding energy again. “I’m never going to be a Galra prisoner again! You’ll have to kill me! Kill me!  _ Kill me _ !”

“Shiro! Hey, it’s just me. It’s Keith!” Keith told him, trying his best to restrain the larger man, but it was no use. Shiro was in full blown panic mode, his eyes wild as he tried everything in his power to get away. 

A sharp pain in his neck caused Shiro to cry out in pain, and he looked over to see a sad Coran holding a sedation syringe in his hand. 

“Keith? I’m scared…” Shiro whispered as he fell against the table, tears steadily streaming down his cheeks. “Don’t let them get me, please.”

“It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I’ll always be here. We’re safe. I’ll protect you. Just go to sleep, okay?”

Keith was petting Shiro’s hair, stroking his long fingers through the older man’s locks with care, and Shiro began to relax under the heavy sedation and the soothing words of Keith. “Okay…” Shiro whispered, and everything went dark.

**Author's Note:**

> In my head, I have this whole backstory to their time at the Garrison! It would be a multi-chaptered story of how Shiro and Keith fell in love! Let me know if you want more of this series! 
> 
> Also, this is my first Voltron fic! I'm super excited to be a part of this fandom! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are much appreciated!


End file.
